Seiji Ozawa

Seiji Ozawa, long-time music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO), has died.

From 184 to 1987, I had subscription tickets to the BSO — Thursday nights, the so-called “jump seat” in the second balcony, one of the cheapest seats in the house. I remember several transcendent experiences with Ozawa on the conductor’s podium.

The Mahler symphonies; as I recall I heard the second, third, fifth, seventh, and the ninth. Although I can no longer remember the specifics — I have a terrible musical memory — I remember the emotional and spiritual effect Ozawa’s Mahler symphonies had on me.

Three Tableaux from Messiaen’s opera “St. Francis of Assisi,” complete with bird song written into the score, had a tremendous effect on me as well. I hadn’t realized that music could do that — could draw directly on the natural world, could bring the non-human world directly into the concert hall. Messiaen was in the audience that night, which added to the magic.

I mostly remember Ozawa conducting twentieth century music. I had little interest in music from the Baroque, Classical, or Romantic eras. But that’s what Boston audiences wanted: Beethoven, Bach, Brahms, Mozart, over and over again. I still remember attending one of the Friday afternoon concerts (I must have gotten a day off from work), and watching as the rich old blue-haired ladies deliberately stood up and pushed their way out of their seats five minutes into some piece of new music, their nasty way of stating to the whole world that They Did Not Approve. And the hell with the concert-goers whose toes they crushed on the way out.

The self-proclaimed cognoscenti in Boston were exactly like the rich old blue-haired ladies in that they never approved of Ozawa. Take Richard Dyer of the Boston Globe — he seemed to hate Ozawa, and never missed a chance to badmouth him. Sometimes my father and I would attend the same concert, and we’d read Dyer’s review and wonder if he went to the same concert as we did. Even after Ozawa’s death, Dyer couldn’t resist taking potshots at him in the obituary he wrote for today’s Globe — if you only read Dyer’s obit, you’d wonder why in hell the BSO kept such an incompetent socially awkward idiot as their music director for so many years. (I wish I hadn’t read Dyer’s obit; it only served to sully the memory of a brilliant, charismatic, dynamic musician.) Why did the Boston cognoscenti hate him so much? Probably because he was dashing, charismatic, exciting, innovative — all of which are character traits which Boston has historically despised. Plus he wasn’t White. I still say Boston is the most racist city I’ve ever lived in, and hating on Ozawa seems to me to be yet another manifestation of that racism. God knows why Ozawa put up with it for so long, but I’m grateful that he did.

I’ll end with a brief memory of the most memorable concert I ever experienced.

It was Thursday night, November 29. On the program: one of the greatest of all symphonies, Mahler’s Ninth. I took my seat at the back of the second balcony in Symphony Hall, excited to hear the Ninth live for the very first time in my life. The orchestra was much larger than usual, filling the entire stage. Ozawa entered to the usual applause.

The first movement was mind-blowing — I just didn’t realize how huge the sound of a Mahler orchestra was, and I didn’t realize how deeply moving Mahler’s music got towards the end of his career. Looking back, I think my brain was being rewired by what Mahler was saying. The movement ended, and Ozawa stepped off the stage. And we waited. And waited. For nearly twenty minutes. Ozawa’s brother Katsumi had died of a stroke the day before, at age 56, and Ozawa must have been crippled with grief. But he came back on stage. He finished conducting the Ninth, and somehow all the emotion and grief and feelings of love for his brother came through. No doubt Richard Dyer wrote a scoffing review of the performance, but it remains one of the most memorable musical experiences of my life. Ozawa had created music with the deepest feeling possible.

Ozawa wasn’t able to conduct the performances of the Ninth on Friday or Saturday; the BSO had to bring in a substitute. We who were there on that Thursday were the only ones to hear music from Ozawa’s deepest soul; at what cost to him I cannot imagine. But I’m eternally grateful to him for that gift he gave us that night; I’ve never forgotten it; it change me and made me a better person. What more can we ask of the arts?

Noted without comment

It may not surprise you that the data show that people who regularly participate in faith communities are likely to live years longer than those who do no. People connected to communities of shared purpose are less lonely, more motivated, more hopeful, and more fulfilled. Even still, I don’t know anyone who ever joined a church because of advanced metrics.

— Rabbi Sharon Brous, The Amen Effect: Ancient Wisdom To Mend Our Broken Hearts and World (2024), p. 41.

The Fox and the Fish

Another story for liberal religious kids. This story comes from the Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Berakoth 61b.

Once upon a time, the wicked Roman government issued a decree: no more would the Jews be allowed to study the Torah and the law.

But Rabbi Akiva seemed to ignore the decree. He gathered people together quite openly, and taught them the Torah and the law. Pappas, the son of Judah, took him aside and said, “Rabbi Akiva, do know what could happen to you? Aren’t you afraid the Romans will punish you?”

“Let me tell you a story,” said Rabbi Akiva, and he told this story….


Once upon a time, there were many small fish who lived in a stream. One day, fox walked alongside the stream, and noticed that all the fish were darting to and fro, as if they were afraid of something.

“O fish, o fish,” said the fox, “why are you swimming around so? What is it that you are trying to escape?”

“We are trying to escape the nets that the humans have put in the stream to catch us,” said the fish.

“Oh, ho,” said the fox. “Then perhaps you should come up here and walk on dry land alongside me, just as your ancestors used to walk beside my ancestors years and years ago. That way you can escape from the nets of the humans.”

“What, go up on dry land!” said the fish indignantly. “You have a reputation for being smart, but that is a stupid thing to say. We may be afraid of what’s going on here in the water where we feel comfortable, but it would be much worse for us up in the thin air where we would surely die.” And so the fish stayed in the water, and did not try to walk beside the fox on dry land.


Rabbi Avika said, “Now you can see that we are just like the fish in the stream.”

Pappas asked the rabbi to explain.

“It’s like this,” said Rabbi Avika. “If we neglect the Torah, if we neglect what is central to our religion, we would be like fish out of water, and we would die. It is written in the Torah, ‘For that is your life and the length of your days.’ Perhaps we will suffer if we do study the Torah, but we know we will surely die if we don’t.”

Not long after that, the wicked Romans arrested Rabbi Akiva for teaching and studying the Torah. He was roughly thrown into the Roman prison, and there to his surprise he found Pappas.

“Pappas, what are you doing here?” asked Rabbi Akiva.

“O rabbi,” said Pappas, “you were right. I have been thrown into prison for nothing important. At least you have been thrown in prison for something worth dying for.”

And when Rabbi Akiva was killed by the Romans, he died in peace with the words of the Torah on his lips.

Botany in winter

I spent most of this past week at a retreat center in western Massachusetts where there was no internet service, and my cell phone service was spotty. I was staying in an isolated cabin. And there was hardly anyone else at the center the whole time I was there. Just me and the wood stove and the outhouse, and a hundred acres of woodlands.

I went there to do some reading, but I also found time to do some winter botany. Turns out you can identify trees in winter by looking at their bundle scars, stipules, and bud scales. Then I had to learn what bundle scars, stipules, and bud scales were.

Close up photo of a bud on a twig

There was only an inch or two of snow on the ground, so I could also look at moss. I found Dicranum sp., Thuidium sp., Callicladium haldanianum, and several others.

So even though it’s winter, you can still do botany.

Tiny moss plants
Moss growing on the bark of an Eastern Hemlock